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Hi, talking about smart speaker and Alexa ... last week I bought cheap smart speaker with Alexa for the first time, the GGMM E5. It is a very good device for its features.

Anyway, what I've found in Alexa ... it all looks a quite bit raw, like something put together by engineers to do cool things between themselves. I mean, it works very nicely to play music from Spotify and TuneIn Radio but for the rest .... Configuration is confusing. Both the Web App and the iOS App lacks features ...

For instance, I have two email accounts, one fo work and another for personal affairs and I can't link Alexa to more than one Google account? This means, that I cannot get my full schedule for the day ... so whats the point really in reporting half a schedule?

What about selecting the music or radio station for the Alarm? No, cannot do that ...

Alexa Skills are confusing to setup. The skills repository is difficult to use and lacks discovery features.

All in all, given my experience, I think the players in this market are yet to be decided. And if I know Apple, it might not be always the company that comes out with an approach to a challenge, yet it is usually the first to come up with a solution that can be used by non gadget driven people, meaning that it works solidely without a lifetime in engineering.

In this context, I honestly think once again the future is apps not skills. For instance, I use an app on my iPhone and iPad called "Stop breathe & think". The fact that I need to go to Alexa App to then look out if a skill is available in the context of the app and than enable this skill ... its a no go. I can see me in the near future, installing this app on my iPhone or iPad and all AirPlay 2 speakers registered to my account automatically getting this "skill" through Siri. Furthermore, all Family Members doing the same ... Or all the accounts linked on my iPhone are also linked in the smart speakers and so on.

Has it is, the smart speakers experience do not look well designed to me, not easy to setup and use. Just because its voice enabled it does not mean that it is easy to use and setup!!!!!!!!! Haven't tried Google's approach yet, but I guess I will not considering I'm not an Android user.

Time will tell ...

Brad: I don't understand how iOS 11 influences your Alexa OS managing your lightning. Do you have two overlapping systems managing your lights, Homekit and Alexa Home using different rules ...? Choose one.

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